Mushroom Satori: The Cult Diary

Joseph Szimhart based his literary debut, a novel about a disenchanted college dropout who joins a religious commune in remote New Mexico, on a true story: his own. Since his involvement in a small cult in the 1970s, Szimhart has become a sought-after consultant and speaker in the field of exit therapy, appearing on The Maury Povich Show and advising Oprah producers while conducting more than 500 interventions with patients aged 17 to 75. “I wrote it primarily as entertainment, but there are many layers of philosophical, psychological and social themes that religious seekers and others will hopefully find enlightening,” he said.